50 Years Ago: Nuclear War Planning

50 Years Ago: Nuclear War Planning

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ARTIFICIAL SURF: The “International Hygiene Exposition” in Dresden had a swimming pool with artificial waves. It looks like great fun but our more puritanical editors felt the need to justify a visit by concluding, “persons may derive benefit from the massage effected by the moving water.” Scientific American, July 27, 1912

CRUISE SHIPS: A novel idea: just being on a boat, stopping off at interesting places around the world, just for fun. The Prinzessin Victoria Luise is considered to be the first ship purpose-built just for pleasure cruising. The $650 cost of an around-the-world cruise advertised in 1912 is equivalent to $15,000 today Scientific American, February 10, 1912

TRAVEL AND PHOTOGRAPHY: A growing number of people had enough disposable income to spend on travel, cameras and film. Thus began the great tourist tradition of standing around ignoring the delightful scenery while fiddling with your camera. Scientific American, February 17, 1912 and June 15, 1912

CIVILIZED TRAVEL: Travel was becoming more like a luxury hotel and less like steerage. (A century later that trend seems to be reversing.) Such advertisements encouraged family travel just for the fun of it--as well as dragging the kids to see the widely flung relatives.
Image: Scientific American, April 20, 1912

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CAMPING: This advertisement appeared 58 years after Henry David Thoreau wrote about his life at Walden Pond. The star is Wilderness, but (as with Thoreau) one easily within reach of “palatial trains” and “good hotels.” Scientific American, June 1, 1912

LUXURY CARRIAGE: The cachet of the upper crust, without the expensive chauffeur. The advertisement says this battery-driven “society car” goes “faster than you will want to drive.” A top speed of only 20 m.p.h. proved this last to be untrue. Scientific American, November 16, 1912

DRIVE FOR FUN: This message from 1912 is not only selling an internal-combustion car but also a lifestyle ideal: a pleasant ride in the country with your fashionably dressed friends and family (without any old-fashioned mechanical rudeness). Scientific American, May 18, 1912

RACING BOATS: Power boats for racing “may well be called a ‘rich man’s toy.’” The article noted, however, the trickle-down effect when millionaires pushed the science and art of boatbuilding. Here, a racing boat bristles with exhaust pipes. Scientific American, January 6, 1912

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BILLIARDS AT HOME: Privacy was becoming more widespread. This new reality gave people a chance to play games in the private space of their own homes. Scientific American, December 7, 1912

HYGIENIC LIVING: This advertisement may imply that being a model middle class citizen in 1912 means having the opportunity, perhaps even the duty, of taking care of yourself in a way that your parents did not or could not. Scientific American, November 9, 1912

Nuclear War Planning “The May 31 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine considers in detail the consequences of the 20 megatons scheduled for Boston in a nuclear attack scenario: ‘It is likely that the vectors of epidemic disease would survive radiation injury better than the human population. Eastern equine encephalitis, hepatitis, poliomyelitis and other endemic disease could easily reach epidemic proportions under these circumstances.’ Prompt disposal of the dead will be essential for ‘control of epidemic disease and its vectors, flies and rodents’ and for ‘equally important, though less apparent,’ psychological reasons. Citing a study by the Office of Civil Defense Mobilization, the authors concur in the view that ‘the demolished city must be fenced in or cordoned and placed under quarantine.’”

Shark Danger “Data from recent experiments may serve to remind bathers, skin divers, small-boat sailors and others who venture into the ocean that there is as yet no sure protection from sharks in open water. It has long been suspected that sharks possess a remarkable ability to locate their prey, often at a considerable distance. Study has accordingly been focused on the sensory organs [see photograph] that direct their predatory behavior. —Perry W. Gilbert”

July 1912

Artificial Wave Pool “Probably no feature of the International Hygiene Exposition held in Dresden last year attracted more general interest than the Undosa artificial surf bath. The receipts from the sale of bath tickets [about six cents apiece] were unexpectedly large, amounting sometimes to $450 in a single day. It is evident that the artificial surf bath may be made a very profitable as well as a very beneficial institution. All persons may derive benefit from the massage effected by the moving water.”

Daring Feats “Among the well-known vaudeville entertainers must be mentioned Mr. Harry Houdini, whose celebrated feats with handcuffs, strait-jackets and various restraints used to confine the insane and fractious are well known. On Sunday, July 7th, Mr. Houdini invited a party of newspaper men and those interested in magic, to witness a very remarkable box-trick on New York Bay. The box, in which Houdini was ‘packed for export’ was dumped into the water. In exactly a minute and ten seconds Houdini emerged from the water, swimming toward the lifeboat which had been provided. The act was witnessed by thousands of spectators who crowded the decks of three ferryboats.”

Collisions at Sea “The wreck of the ‘Titanic’ was a severe and painful shock to us all; many of us lost friends and acquaintances by this dreadful catastrophe. I asked myself: ‘Has Science reached the end of its tether? Is there no possible means of avoiding such a deplorable loss of life and property? Thousands of ships have been lost by running ashore in a fog, hundreds by collisions with other ships or with icebergs, nearly all resulting in great loss of life and property.’ At the end of four hours it occurred to me that ships could be provided with what might be appropriately called a sixth sense, which would detect large objects in their immediate vicinity. —Sir Hiram Maxim”

Maxim's concept anticipated SONAR.

July 1862

Rabies Danger “The most effectual means of preventing dogs biting, and thereby communicating the disease, seems to be muzzling them. M. Renault, the distinguished veterinarian, states that the assertion that muzzling dogs, by the constraint it produces, is itself a cause of rabies, is utterly unsupported by any well-established facts. On the other hand, he points out the results which have been obtained in Berlin. When in 1854 the muzzling was ordered and strictly executed upon all dogs not tied up, the Berlin Veterinary School verified from 1854 to 1861 only nine cases have occurred, and none of these since 1856.”

This article was originally published with the title "50, 100 &amp; 150 Years Ago"

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